High resolution images of Moon captured by Chandrayaan-2 released

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has released pictures of the Moon on Friday captured by the Orbiter High-Resolution Camera (OHRC) onboard Chandrayaan-2. The Orbiter High Resolution Camera gives very high spatial resolution images of the Moon, according to ISRO.

The image was clicked from an altitude of 100km, the space agency said. It covered a part of Boguslawsky E crater (named after a German astronomer), which lies in the southern polar region of Moon, ISRO further added. During the descent to the lunar surface on September 7, ISRO lost communications with the Vikram lander and the space agency has been trying to establish contact with the lander ever since.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)*, which is operated by USA’s NASA flew over the lander’s site on the Moon and attempted to capture photographs of it on September 17. However, the LRO failed to capture images of the lander after passing over its landing site. “The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) acquired images around the targeted landing site, but the exact location of the lander was not known so the lander may not be in the camera field of view,” a NASA official reportedly said.

In a major breakthrough for India’s second lunar exploration mission, Chandrayaan-2 successfully entered the Moon’s orbit on August 20 at 9.02 am after 30 days of journey in space.